Episode 2 The Big Life Fix with Simon Reeve

This programme contains some strong language

We're living in a new age of invention.

Brilliant brains are no longer just holed up in leading university labs

or research facilities.

Today inventors are coming together in technology hubs like this

to design - to help improve people's lives.

It's actually working. That's so cool!

For this series, we've brought together

seven of the UK's leading engineers, designers

and computer programmers...

Ta-da!

I'm going to make myself the guinea pig.

They will use cutting-edge science and technology

to build life-changing solutions for people in desperate need.

I don't know who to ask.

Or where to go.

In pain. Uncomfortable.

From helping individuals who are seriously ill...

-HE EXHALES

-Whoa!

..to solving issues affecting entire communities...

Someone is either going to get seriously injured and can't get aid,

or someone's going to die.

They'll attempt to tackle major problems

that have so far gone unsolved.

I think I've created something really new

and possibly revolutionary.

The potential of this is massive.

Fingers crossed...nothing cracks or explodes.

This week, they'll try to give a voice

to a paralysed man who can no longer speak.

To enable him to have a bit of quality of life, I'd do anything.

They'll attempt to give a teenage boy

the chance to ride a bike for the very first time.

This exercise has really illustrated how difficult it is.

If you don't succeed, try, try, try again.

And they'll design new technology

they hope will stop a national crimewave.

Nine of them dead, they got suffocated.

The police don't stand a chance.

They've got to catch them red-handed.

If they succeed, they could change these people's lives

and the lives of many more.

Yeah!

It's life-changing.

Our team's base is in east London.

It's one of a national network of maker spaces

for a new generation of inventors.

Crammed full of the latest technology,

it's from here that our seven leading inventors

will attempt to create fixes for people with nowhere else to turn.

I'm excited about what we're going to learn.

I can't wait to meet these people.

The team includes a director from Microsoft,

engineers who worked at Dyson's innovation labs,

award-winning designers who've built everything from ambulances

to earthquake centres.

Let's get our sleeves rolled up and get stuck in.

I'm Simon Reeve.

Over the next nine months, I'll be working with this brilliant team.

Today I'm in Peterborough,

meeting the first person who's asked for the team's help.

It's the first floor for Graham.

This is Graham.

Hello, Graham.

Fist bump, I gather?

55-year-old Graham Bullivant has partial locked-in syndrome

and desperately needs a better way to communicate.

There is no rush.

It goes whatever speed you want. Don't rush for us.

'In 2014, Graham, an engineer and family man,

'suffered a massive stroke.

'He now only has limited movement of his head and left arm.'

"In pain all the time.

"I'm sure people forget."

His wife Zoe has been at his hospital bedside

every day for nearly two years.

Graham's brain works perfectly.

"I am normal inside."

"If Zoe's with me, I can face anything.

"I get frustrated."

I bet you do.

And technology must be a bit frustrating, as well.

This strikes me as being a hell of a lot better than nothing,

but a really inadequate form of communication.

It takes Graham more than three minutes to write a sentence

it would take just seconds to say.

I watch and wait and then read out what he's tapped.

"It's too slow.

"I can see everyone watching and reading

"out of the corner of my eyes."

And I'm wanting to say the words and break the silence,

while you're tapping away.

Must be incredibly frustrating for somebody

who is very used to conversing, talking, chatting.

The stylus I invented,

because we've bought so many stylus for Graham to try,

they're either too heavy or too short.

After an hour of writing, Graham is exhausted.

So we leave him to rest.

Happy with that?

Can you face talking about what life was like before it happened?

Before? Oh, brill.

Oh, my God. Fantastic.

Every day was a blessing.

You were married, you've been married for how long?

Over 30 years. Way over 30 years.

I was spoilt, really.

He did everything for me.

Have nice times, have holidays, he took all that pressure.

And now it's my turn.

And, my God, it's come as a big shock.

When was the last time you actually heard his voice?

14 months ago.

When Graham lost his voice and I said to everybody,

one of the things I said to all my friends and family,

"Get a recording of your husband or boyfriend."

Because, my God, did I miss that.

That, "Goodnight, I love you."

That was horrendous!

Not having his voice.

So I asked everybody, "Have you got a video?"

Nothing.

Nothing.

I'll do anything for Graham.

Now I've got to. I've got to.

To enable him to have a bit of quality of life.

Back at the inventors' hub in London,

we talk through Graham's case.

What do we think, at the moment, Graham wants?

He wants to be able to communicate like he used to.

He's got to tap it all out and it's so frustrating.

Yeah, absolutely.

When you're hanging out with your family,

you want to express yourself emotionally and quickly.

It's what makes us us.

With these devices, they don't have an emphasis on,

"I would like to be sarcastic."

So that's something that we could, you know, help with.

Try and figure out a way to get digital voice to sound sarcastic.

It's something very profound that we're discussing, really, isn't it?

It's not just giving him a new voice.

In a way, it's giving him his old voice back.

Yusuf Muhammad is an award-winning industrial designer

who's worked extensively with the NHS.

Today, he's taking me to look for alternatives

for Graham's stylus pen and iPad.

We meet Gary Derwent, an expert in assisted technologies.

So we're just seeing that the system is picking up your eyes.

He's going to demonstrate a system called Eye Gaze.

Stable signal.

-ARTIFICIAL VOICE:

-W, E...

Get ready to watch the orange circle.

This is the jewel in the crown of communication aids,

where an infrared camera allows you to control the system

with your eyes alone.

It's taking about 25 pictures a second of your eyes

to differentiate the centre of your pupil

and what they call the glint in your eye.

When your eyes move, the glint stays in the same place,

but the centre of your pupil moves.

-It's looking for the glint in my eye?

-It is.

Brilliant! I love it.

You select letters or words

by letting your gaze rest on them for a moment.

-ARTIFICIAL VOICE:

-Hi...

..there,

how...

are...

And it uses an artificial voice,

letting the user join in the conversation.

-VOICE:

-Hi there, how are you doing?

It feels like I'm controlling the device with my mind.

What extraordinary technology.

-VOICE:

-Hi, Simon, I'm doing well. I am writing with my eyes.

The Eye Gaze could be the basis

for a new communication system for Graham.

But Yusuf doesn't think it will solve all of his problems.

Fatigue is such a big, big thing.

And I can tell, from just trying the system, that maintaining your gaze,

I'm sure after a while it's going to be...quite laborious.

So maybe he could use the pen from time to time,

or he could use a switch controller.

The next step is for Gary to meet Graham and assess him.

So we're just going to do some calibration.

These are the Eye Gaze cameras here at the bottom.

There's going to be a dot that will appear on the screen

and it'll move around.

So your job is just to look at the dot and follow it.

Are you finding that the dot is following your eye?

No, it's not picking up exactly where you're looking at. No.

Nerve damage, caused by the stroke,

has affected Graham's eyes and pupils.

So the camera is struggling to follow his gaze.

Looking at what we've just witnessed...

..might be the wrong route.

So if Eye Gaze isn't the thing, that's fine.

You know, it isn't right for everybody.

I'm really pleased that you've come, so you can see how we're struggling.

But obviously, if that's not the right angle to go down,

-we'll try something else. I'm not giving up.

-Yes.

It's hugely disappointing,

the Eye Gaze system doesn't work for Graham.

Another solution has to be found.

Back at the inventors' hub,

the team are getting ready for their next challenge -

to build a bike for Oscar, a disabled teenager.

Yusuf will lead the case.

Why did you want to get involved with this particular fix?

Well, I mean, I love bikes, I'm really passionate about cycling

and I think it's the kind of extra freedom it gives you.

We used to cycle to and from the park,

the wind in my hair - when I had hair!

And just the independence

of being able to explore your local area is very cool.

You sound like the right man for this fix, Yusuf.

I hope so. I hope so.

We're in the West Midlands to meet Oscar,

who seems to be a whizz in the kitchen.

He puts us to work.

Chop some mushrooms, maybe?

I think you'll find that's my job!

We've been here at least two minutes and we haven't had a cup of tea.

What are you like?!

Are you a keen cooker, Oscar?

-Yeah.

-What do you like about it?

-The eating, or the...?

-Cooking.

Oscar has Moebius syndrome,

a rare genetic condition which means he was born with no hands or feet.

I can do the same as everyone,

-but it would, like, take me a little bit longer.

-Right.

But there's something his friends can do that Oscar can't.

And that's ride a bike.

You've got two different prosthetics on your lower legs, haven't you?

Yeah.

And obviously, that's going to have an impact

on how Yusuf creates the cycle for you.

Mm.

Are you going to perch in?

'I learn more about Oscar's condition from his mum, Lisa.'

So he's got heels on both.

-Yeah.

-And ankle joints.

So he's got sort of a third to a half a foot on this side.

Yeah.

-What did he say?

-Can he have a drink?

He's off!

He's such a lad.

He's just about to become a teenager.

Oh, yes.

And for teenage boys, bikes aren't just about getting around.

They're part of growing up.

Without a bike, Oscar's being left behind.

It's just kids their age, however thoughtful they are,

-at some point they're going to want to cycle away.

-Yeah.

And then he's left standing there on his own.

It's impossible for Oscar to ride a standard bike

because he has no hands to grip the handlebars.

Yusuf needs to come up with a custom alternative.

We've come to Oscar's school to get a better idea of what he wants.

Oscar, which handlebars do you prefer?

These.

-Seat?

-This one. I want that one.

Oh...

-Yeah, that one goes.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-What bikes are cool at the moment?

BMX.

-So BMXs are cool and that's what you would like?

-Yeah.

You think he'd much prefer a sort of a standard bike. Why was that?

Because all his life

he just didn't want to be known as different, really.

He just wants to fit in.

What is the most important thing to you about a bike?

Make it look like as normal as possible.

-Yeah.

-I understand.

Back at the hub in London, the team are discussing the challenge.

-YUSUF:

-Well, Oscar's never ridden a bike before.

Really just depends on how he takes to it.

Isn't this a really tricky one?

It's really, really tricky.

If we're trying to engineer something which has two wheels,

that's obviously a real challenge.

If he falls off, he could get quite hurt.

We need to think about it like,

"Would I be OK with this guy falling off a bike that I built?"

There's a lot of downsides to making this thing.

I don't know, I guess if you're going to graze your knees

and fall off bikes,

you know, this is the best age to do it.

If you give him the opportunity to cycle,

he will fall off, certainly, but he will fly, as well.

And that will change his life, I think.

Knowing the risks, Yusuf has come up with a plan.

So I have...

ordered myself an adult BMX.

I'm going to make myself the guinea pig,

try out a couple of these things,

so I can have an understanding of what's going to work for Oscar.

I mean, how is he going to steer?

I have to consider how he's going to brake.

So what we have here is a coaster brake,

right there in the centre of the wheel.

All Oscar has to do is backpedal

and the bike will brake, hands-free.

It's down to the park to try out his first prototype.

Pretty easy.

You can kind of screech to a halt.

It works fine, but it doesn't have enough stopping power.

Oscar will need a brake on the front wheel as well.

I've designed a new brake position.

Rather than pull the levers,

I've reversed the brake position so that Oscar,

all he has to do is push down with his forearms

and he can activate the brakes.

Back in the park, the front brake is proving to be a problem.

You see now... You see, I can do it now.

Now I can use the brake.

Now I can use that brake and feel fine.

But as soon as I'm standing up...

..I've got no bloody chance. So...

Whoa...!

BMXs aren't really designed to be ridden sitting down.

As soon as he operates the brake standing up...

Jesus!

..Yusuf loses his balance.

I think this exercise has really illustrated how difficult it is.

On a BMX like this it's not going to happen.

-It's not going to work?

-No.

Adapting an off-the-shelf bike won't work.

Yusuf will have to build a completely new bike

from the bottom up.

The team are trying to design a way for Graham to communicate.

Ruby Steel is now leading the effort to find a solution.

What's the absolute minimum effort required to make a control happen?

She's a top design strategist.

Through in-depth research into Graham and his condition,

she'll decide what path the team will take.

It's like driving a car.

Like, you know, you use, like, your hands and you use your feet,

so you're not putting all the emphasis on just one movement.

After weeks of discussions and thousands of Post-it notes,

the team decide to build Graham his own bespoke communication system.

They are calling it the Reaction Pad.

The Reaction Pad is about giving Graham back his presence in a room.

The really tragic and most frustrating thing

for Graham at the moment

is that people are treating him like he's brain-dead when he's not.

The key thing is that he can say just a quick statement

whenever the urge comes across.

So it's just really key phrases

that will allow him to be part of a conversation

in a way that he just can't at the moment.

Ruby's in Peterborough to discuss the idea with Graham.

Hi, it's good to see you. Hi, Graham. Hi, Zoe.

This is Ross.

I'm going to ask another member of the design team...

Ross Atkin is a skilled designer and engineer

who specialises in developing technology for disabled people.

What we're proposing is an app that runs on the iPad.

We're sort of calling it the Reaction Pad at the moment

and it's, in essence, going to be a tablet to say things quickly.

Their idea is for Graham to communicate

using preloaded words and phrases.

When you pick up the tablet, the app or whatever,

this is the first screen you see.

"Help" in the middle, as being the most important thing.

When Graham pushes "help",

he'll be taken to another screen that contains different commands.

"In pain, uncomfortable, thirsty..."

The app will contain buttons for quick statements.

Things like, "Please, thank you..."

Buttons for fast questions.

"What, why, how?"

And buttons to get people's attention.

"Excuse me? Oi! Talk to me."

The device will speak for Graham using an automated voice.

One of the things we were trying to explore

is what we could do that would be

a sort of replacement of the robot voice.

They don't tend to be very expressive

and they don't tend to have a lot of emotion.

We were interested in the idea of using clips

from films and TV and cartoons.

Good? Or scrap?

-Good.

-Good.

-ZOE:

-He's smiling like a Cheshire cat!

And Ross thinks he can improve on Zoe's home-made stylus.

We know that you get tired operating a stylus

and so we're quite interested in

things that might work better than the stylus.

We could make you a thing that was just on a bit of cardboard

or a very, very thin and light

and it could have little touchpads, basically, printed on it,

so that you could touch them with your fingers or with the stylus.

OK.

Thank you, Graham.

-See you next week.

-Yeah, take care.

-ZOE:

-"Have a drink for me."

-All right.

-Can definitely take care of that!

-Can definitely do that.

-Thanks, Graham.

-Thank you, Graham.

Thanks, guys. Nice meeting you.

Yusuf is heading back to the West Midlands.

The first BMX he adapted wouldn't work for Oscar,

so he's decided to come up with an entirely new design.

Just going to off-load so we can do some different exercises today.

The first thing we can see is the seat is a bit low already.

He's building a customised bike for Oscar

and he needs precise measurements.

Pedal fast.

OK, steer left.

And...brake now.

-They're fine.

-I think we've got the makings of a bike design.

Once Yusuf has the measurements,

he transfers them onto the rear of a tandem bike for Oscar to test.

But there's a problem...

I'm not going on this.

No.

Oscar's never been on a moving bicycle before.

He's worried.

-I'm worried.

-Yeah.

-I'm worried you're going to make me fall off...

-Yeah.

-..and I don't really think I can ride a bike.

I'm scared.

They're my worries.

I think it's natural to feel scared.

-I'm not riding it.

-It's a scary thing.

-I will only do it...

-Yeah.

..if someone is holding the back of me.

Because if I fall, I don't want to die.

-You're not going to die.

-It's only a bike.

-Oh...!

Go on, have a go.

If I fall off, I'm suing!

OK.

No jokes.

OK, so we're going to start slowly, I'm not going to pedal,

we're just going to go forward, OK?

So you pedal, you pedal.

You pedal.

Trust him.

Please, help me.

OK, now I think it would be worth giving a go without Mum.

-No, that's not happening!

-Go on, then.

-Fine.

I'll hold on if that's going to be a problem.

-Go.

-Here we go.

Come on, then.

Mum...!

I'm here. I'm holding on.

Holding the balance, yeah?

Yeah.

Think you can let go, Mum.

I am letting go.

Look up.

Easy.

Ready to stop?

Again, again, again!

Ready to go again?

Mum, you've got to hold me!

Ready?

Easy. We've got this.

Great work.

Go all the way.

Keep going! Keep going! Keep going to the end!

Keep going to the end!

Wonderful to see and he's absolutely thrilled about it

because he wants to keep doing it and doing it and doing it.

It's lovely.

It's about him being the same.

It's just kids their age, however thoughtful they are,

at some point they're going to want to cycle away

and then he's left standing there on his own.

Keep going!

And I didn't want him to have to go through that.

If he's got a bike, he's able to be the same as everybody else.

-Thank you, Yusuf.

-Yeah, no problem.

-Is my hair messed up?

-No, it's perfect.

It's good, yeah.

Yusuf begins designing a bespoke BMX bike for Oscar.

I'd like to move the seat slightly more forward

and a little bit more upright.

What this is going to do is allow Oscar

to put most of his weight on his bum.

Changing the angle of the seat post

has a knock-on effect for every angle on the bike frame.

I'm going to set this...

to 260.

Steel tubes are cut precisely to match Yusuf's drawings...

..then TIG welded together to make the frame.

It's a long process with some late nights for Yusuf.

While Yusuf is building, Oscar's in training.

Go, Oscar, pedal, pedal, pedal.

He's learning from professional cycling coach Lisa Costa.

I think what we'll do, you've got more length that way.

So if we go down there...

Oscar's made good progress on the mountain bike,

but because he can't pull on the handlebars,

starting and stopping is proving tricky.

Pedal, pedal, pedal.

Designing the fixes is a long, arduous process.

Well done. Give me a high five.

It's three months since the first prototype

and only now has Yusuf been able to complete version two of the BMX.

So...

Wow! Look at that.

This here is the prototype.

A BMX-style frame, BMX wheels.

-What do you think, Oscar?

-Yeah, I like it.

What about you, Lisa?

Practical wise, I'm a little bit concerned.

-Because there's no gearing.

-Yep.

-It's quite hilly round here.

He'll find it difficult going up the hills with this.

Lisa's also concerned about the BMX's dimensions.

If you just want to get on the bike for us.

His whole posture's... It's just too forward.

-Yeah. And you see how high his knees are coming up?

-Yeah.

We need shorter cranks.

Yeah, we do.

But shortening cranks, the stems for the pedals,

will make pedalling harder.

I do really want a BMX.

I am super keen that...

..this BMX frame,

we find a configuration that will work with him.

If you don't succeed, try, try, try again.

I always find, as a designer, you just get,

people tell you it's completely wrong over and over again

until it's right.

So you have to kind of have a thick skin

and you have to appreciate that, ultimately, in order for it to work,

it's going to be wrong for a long...

It's going to be wrong for a while, if that makes sense.

So, yeah, we'll just have to roll with the punches

and back to the drawing board and get him what he needs.

The Fix Team are about to begin their third case,

tackling one of the UK's biggest rural crimes -

sheep rustling.

I'm in Somerset to meet Mike,

a farmer whose livelihood is being threatened

by criminals stealing his sheep in the dead of night.

What's happened when you've lost sheep before?

Can you just describe it?

They pinched them in two Transit vans.

And one of the Transit vans broke down.

And they left them in the back of the Transit van.

Then, when we let them out, nine of them were dead, they got suffocated,

or they were trampled to death.

To me, that was awful.

What sort of people would just leave sheep to die in them circumstances,

or let anything die in them circumstances?

Sheep rustling is one of the oldest crimes in Britain

and it's an increasing problem.

It's thought almost 100,000 sheep are stolen every year,

costing farmers millions of pounds.

How much of a problem is it around here?

Last year was a real problem.

The numbers are getting bigger.

Whereas it used to be twos and threes and fours and fives,

now it's trailer-loads, lorry-loads.

-Entire flocks.

-And there was one person up North

who had 600 pinched one night.

The police don't stand a chance.

They've got to catch them red-handed.

I fed back what I'd learnt to the team in London.

Both sides of my family are farmers,

so I'm kind of aware of actually what it's like

to try and control a rural space.

An enormous challenge, I imagine.

It's not like bolting your front door, is it?

The space is the problem.

We need to do a kind of Crimewatch reconstruction.

So we need to find out as much as possible

about how the different crimes were committed,

find out what was in common.

Because that's the only way we're going to really understand

where the points that we can intervene,

in order to prevent it, are.

All right?

Dr Zoe Laughlin and Jude Pullen have come to the farm.

Mike and his three sons have agreed to reconstruct the night

their sheep were stolen.

Come on, Floss, here! Fetch them on.

Fetch them on.

Zoe is co-founder and director

of the Institute of Making at University College London.

So when you're rustled, I mean, they do it pretty silently?

Yeah, they know what they're doing.

And sheep will handle a lot different in the dark.

Will they be quieter or louder, the sheep?

They'll be quieter,

but they'll group together more and run a lot easier.

So you have to be kind of a skilled shepherd to round up sheep?

Oh, you've got to know what you're doing, yeah.

It's not as simple as it looks.

Come on, Fern, here!

Here, Fern! Here, Floss!

-So we're going to see how fast we can get them in.

-Yeah.

-Under a minute I reckon.

-Under a minute?

Jude is an award-winning design engineer.

Like Zoe, he also grew up in the countryside.

These ones need to get going.

HE WHISTLES

Get in.

The rustle happens at an impressive pace.

Within moments, the sheep are in the trailer.

So, this is pretty impressive.

You're getting this done in a relaxed way in about two minutes.

-Yeah.

-And you're saying, if you wanted to,

if you were a serious criminal,

you could get this done in half that time?

Easy, yeah. If you were pushing, you could, easily.

-It's that simple.

-That's it.

You can't lock this road, because it's public access.

Yeah, this is public, so we can't lock this road.

Yeah, it's all too easy.

Sheep rustlers nearly always work at night.

They cut out identifying ear tags

and can take the sheep almost anywhere for slaughter or sale.

In the last ten years,

only a handful of rustlers have been prosecuted.

After the reconstruction, we head to a pub

to talk through the potential solutions with Mike

and a group of other local farmers.

Zoe and Jude have got some bits of tech and kit to show you

which, hopefully, we are going to be able to look at and pick apart.

First, Zoe tries an infrared beam...

-When something crosses the beam...

-BEEPING

..they sound an alarm.

You could easily imagine them between

exit and entry points of fields and that kind of thing.

The problem with that is, we live there,

and that's there,

which is probably about two and a half miles.

By the time we've got dressed, got a vehicle, got a dog...

Because you would never go anywhere without a dog, would you?

..and got up there, they could be long gone.

Then ultra-violet dye,

which is invisible until a UV light is shone on it.

It could be something that would be triggered to spray.

Criminals, you'd spray their truck, you'd spray the sheep.

-But then you've got to find who the criminal is to read the mark.

-Yeah.

Then Jude shows off a sound-activated alarm

which he's hoping will detect when the sheep are distressed.

Now...

-on the tray...

-What is this?

This device is, when the sort of bleats are at a gentle level,

it wouldn't really send much of a signal.

But when it gets too loud,

it would transmit through this little device via Wi-Fi.

And as you can see, if I check my phone,

-it's been alerting me that...

-Sheep alert.

-Sheep alert.

What do you think, gentlemen?

Is something like that viable? Could it work?

I think ewes with lambs at foot will bleat when they are distressed.

Yeah.

But store lambs, or hogs as we call them at this time of year,

very rarely do they bleat.

The farmers aren't convinced.

They reject all of Zoe and Jude's first ideas.

It's going to be a lot harder than they thought

to combat sheep rustling.

Back on Graham's case,

Ross and Ruby have been called to Peterborough.

Zoe's made a discovery that could revolutionise her project

to give Graham back his voice.

Is that what I think it might be?

-Are these tapes of Graham?

-Yeah.

Oh, my God...

Builders were working in the attic and found an old box full of tapes.

Hello. Here's me, Graham, sitting with my daughter Louisa.

It's the first time Zoe's heard her husband's voice since his stroke.

Well, seven moods, you know?

Shouting at me!

Shouting at Louisa.

-ROSS:

-Is this Graham talking?

-Yeah.

Did he just say tea-time?

Would you like a bottle on it?

THEY ALL LAUGH

I love it!

-GRAHAM:

-Ah... Let's have a big "Ah!" for Louisa.

You're not supposed to throw stones at the video camera.

-Here.

-Argh!

-GRAHAM:

-Whooh! Whooh!

-ROSS:

-That's going to be great for getting people's attention.

No, that's Graham.

That is a strong look.

Dad, say something.

I'm knackered.

A quick flash!

-I told you he was naughty.

-We can't have that.

He is so naughty!

Yay...!

-LOUISA:

-And it's really nice looking at these lovebirds.

It's just amazing to actually see what he's really like.

-That's wicked.

-OR what he used to be like.

Yeah, but he's still... He is still there.

-It's just he can't get it out.

-Yeah.

Hard.

Now Ruby and Ross will take the tapes away

to see if they can build Graham's own voice into their invention.

Seeing him in those videos and seeing who he was...

..and for him to have lost that, imagine if that happened to you.

And imagine if you went from who he was

to being in the position he's in now.

The fact that you would have any positivity about anything after that

is just amazing, absolutely amazing.

Anyway, I thought I needed to say that while I was thinking about it.

While Ross and Ruby start trawling through the tapes of Graham's voice,

Yusuf is making progress with Oscar's bike.

There's a lot more that we need to do on the handlebars

to make him comfortable, to make him feel stable.

Oscar can't grip the handlebars,

so Yusuf designs and 3D prints various wrist attachments.

But Oscar doesn't want obvious disability aids on his bike.

Yusuf hits on a solution...

If we were to use Velcro and create a...

..almost like a wristband for him.

What it would mean is that we could have a surface on the handlebars

that he could...clip down into.

The idea that he could kind of steer with it is one I'd like to explore.

Yusuf is getting help a little closer to home

from an expert he knows can manufacture a Velcro armband.

My mum is helping out create the armbands.

The Velcro pads seem to be fairly easy to...

SEWING MACHINE JAMS

What you get is a very strong grip being formed.

So strong that I can hold the handlebar.

But if Oscar is in danger, it easily rips off.

And with a few final tweaks,

it's time to put the months of work to the test.

I feel very responsible.

I don't want to put him in harm's way.

Also, I don't want to disappoint him. He's put a lot of faith in me.

-Good luck.

-Thanks, man. Thanks.

In a park near his home,

Oscar and his friends and family are waiting

to see if he can ride a bicycle.

Over the last eight months, Yusuf has built not one but two bikes.

A mountain bike for longer journeys and also Oscar's dream bike,

an incredible BMX.

That's fantastic.

The smartest BMX that you will see in Sandwell and Dudley.

Yusuf straps the Velcro band to one of Oscar's arms,

the other arm is free to push the lever

that operates the front and back brakes.

It's the moment of truth...

Bike trainer Lisa is there to keep an eye.

He's off.

Yes!

-Yeah!

-Yay!

Again!

This is really, really wonderful.

Once he can do this,

then hopefully he'll realise that he can do anything.

This feels to me like Yusuf has...

Cracked it.

You said it.

-Thank you.

-No problem, mate. My pleasure, my pleasure.

That's fine. That's fine.

Thank you. You've changed his life, Yusuf. I really appreciate it.

I'm really intrigued to see where he goes with it.

Is he going to be a Paralympic cyclist?

Is he going to be a BMX stunt rider doing tricks?

Who knows?

His journey cycling is just kind of beginning.

Hi, Malcolm. This is Zoe ringing about the sheep-rustling project.

Have you got ten minutes for me to ask you a few questions?

Having initially failed to impress the farmers with their tech,

the team start speaking to the police, to vets

and leave no stone unturned.

So I've come to a livestock market

to watch a sheep auction and really see how sheep are bought and sold.

Through you come.

Every sheep has an ear tag with an electronic chip

which identifies it and the farm it's from.

They tell me you are ear tag man.

Do you do chips that go anywhere else on the body or in the body?

-No.

-It's just ear tags?

-It is just ear tags.

But thieves can easily remove the tags and replace them with new tags

showing a different owner, stopping people knowing they've been stolen.

OK, come on, I wasn't wrong. £80.

Zoe thinks she has a solution.

Those tags are vulnerable.

So I think this fix is about making something

that's internal to the sheep.

Something that the sheep ingests,

can stay in there for the life of the sheep

but can be read by these readers.

So really the next step is about prototyping those

and looking at the materials.

There's a lot to do.

Back in London, Zoe begins planning with Jude and Ross.

If we can get somehow a tag inside the sheep,

then it couldn't be removed.

So sheep actually have something

that they already ingest if they need mineral supplements

and that's a bolus.

So this is an example of a bolus.

Sheep eat stones all the time

and part of their stomach is designed to hold heavy objects.

If we could somehow get a tag inside a bolus,

then we're looking at essentially an internal tag

which is much less easy to remove.

The problem with the current electronic ear tag

is it uses radio waves and needs a specialist scanner to read it.

Jude has a more modern solution.

You might want to consider one of these things,

which is a Bluetooth transmitter.

Also, a key benefit of that

is that anyone can read it with their smartphone.

We can give people an app

and then anyone can look out for stolen sheep.

So with the app on a smartphone and a Bluetooth bolus inside a sheep,

anyone can become a stolen sheep detective.

So can you get a Bluetooth chip into something this size

or maybe, maximum, that size?

-So that's about as big as it can get.

-Yeah.

A bolus can sit in a sheep's stomach for its whole life

without causing any harm.

It's a perfect place to hide a tracking device.

So we need that inside that

and a phone that can pick it up.

Yeah!

Jude gets straight to work.

He miniaturises the components

and uses his 3D printer to build a tiny case for the batteries.

Doctor of material Zoe will make the housing for the electronics.

Right, so, I'm going to attempt to make a ceramic case

in which the electronic gubbins will live.

So I've made some plaster blanks.

I can then drill holes into them.

So I'll just get a bit of slip in here.

Pour it into the mould.

Once it's been in the mould for a minute or so...

skin starts to form

and you can tip out the remaining liquid clay.

What's left is a wall and a skin of more solid stuff.

I'm going to put them in the oven just to slowly dry them.

Ta-da!

So that's a slip cast cylinder

which then needs to be fired at 1,260 centigrade.

And that will vitrify the material.

Fingers crossed...nothing cracks or explodes.

After 36 hours, Zoe's joined by Jude

and then she lifts the lid on the kiln.

Look at them, the little beauties.

Oh, I'm pleased with that.

And a battery-powered Bluetooth chip is ready to go.

Can we see if your thing fits into my slot?

-Boom, boom!

-That's a good idea.

-Just to kick us off.

OK.

Perfect.

Finally, the team dip the boluses in non-toxic wax

to make them easier to swallow,

add the electronics and seal the lids.

Past ten o'clock at night and I go a bit doolally.

A visit to the shops has given Jude another idea...

A way of making the existing ear tags tamper-proof.

I have an ear tag and I have a tamper-evident tag,

which you might have seen in clothing stores.

These things spray ink all over your stolen shirt

if you try and remove these.

Whoo-hoo!

I'm wondering whether that can actually be used to house the ink.

Here goes.

It's my replica sheep's ear.

Let's see what happens when we cut through it.

So, there. That's quite a good amount.

So any rustler that cuts through Jude's ear tags

will mark themselves and the sheep with indelible dye,

making the sheep almost impossible to sell at auction.

We've got the ink spike here

and that's both blue for the visual

but it also contains UV invisible dye, but is visible with this.

After four months' work,

the team have now come up with two new ideas to deter the criminals.

A tamper-proof ear tag and a hidden tracking device.

We appear to have got the prototyping done,

so here it is...

Now they need to put them to the test.

In London, Ross is building a replacement for Graham's stylus.

He's calling it the D-pad.

Just a very quick, very small, very light little device

for Graham to carry around or have with him

and it's going to allow him to control the app using arrow keys.

Ross enlists the help of his fiancee Isabel to build the D-pad.

It's going to have a touch screen

similar to the ones found on Smartphones.

These work by sensing tiny electrical currents

generated by contact with your fingers.

With the lightest touch,

Graham will be able to operate his tablet computer.

They make the buttons

by putting conductive paint on clear plastic vinyl.

The electric buttons will then be mounted

on incredibly light corrugated plastic,

which Ross cuts with a laser cutter.

Perfect.

Meanwhile, Ruby is on a business trip in China.

She's deciding the order of the statements,

either in Graham's voice or using TV or film clips,

using a computer programme called a wireframe.

The point of wireframe

is to communicate to the rest of your team how the app should work.

It allows you to just work out what's on this screen,

where does it go, what can it do?

Both of them are now working through the night

to get Graham's device ready as quickly as possible.

It's quarter to one.

The D-pad is wired up

and I think I've written the code...

..but I can't get it to upload to the board.

And I think maybe it's to do with the way I've wired it up, but...

..I'm not sure how to fix it.

After months of work, we are back at Mike's farm

getting ready to re-enact another sheep rustle.

But this time the farm will be monitored

by our team's specially-built sheep protection app - Herd It.

Be scared.

-Mike!

-All right?

-Hiya.

-Good to see you.

Oh... Nice pooey hands!

-These guys have been working hard on your behalf.

-Have they?

-Does it work?

-That's what were going to find out today.

So what we've got is a combination of two things.

A bunch of ear tags, which are going to have dye in them.

The other side of it is you're familiar with boluses,

which is what you'd use with your standard applicator,

but we've basically put electronics in it

that are going to transmit a signal like a beacon.

First, Jude's ink ear tags

are fitted in the existing holes in the sheep's ears.

So there we go. You can see it just coming through here

and there we go, clips in.

-Very simple.

-Bob's your teapot.

-To take that ear tag out...

-Yeah?

Oh, I see, you'd have to cut it there.

-You'd have to get a pair of scissors.

-I'm learning, aren't I?!

No, no, no, that's good.

-If you cut there...

-Yeah, yeah.

I know. Yeah, no, no. I let you off there, that's pretty good.

The bolus is swallowed painlessly by the sheep,

with the welfare of the animal monitored by a local vet.

She won't know anything about that.

-It's something that you do all the time on the farm?

-Yeah.

It's time to put the tech to the test.

Crack on with your rustle.

Rustle!

Fetch them on, dogs!

Get in!

We've got to imagine it's the middle of the night, pitch-black,

but the rustlers are out.

The lorry's off.

In the back of the van the first layer of protection comes into play,

the ink ear tags.

Well, let's just imagine the scene.

I'm, let's say, an inspector monitoring for rural crime.

Can see some suspicious blue on the ear of the sheep here and this one.

You're not going to miss that.

But look at his hands.

Proof that he's been up to no good.

How long will it stay on?

So this is developed, this dye, for banks, and so it's permanent.

You're rufty-tufty sheep farmers. What do you think?

Yeah, no, it's very good, very good, right.

But I still say that there's nothing tying them back to the owner.

Yeah.

As soon as sheep are off-loaded at the market,

it's time to see if the bolus actually works.

-So the minute I opened my phone it was telling me...

-Instantly!

-Yeah.

"Found sheep."

-"36846 from flock number four."

-Yep.

This is Mike's phone, as it were,

saying your sheep was last spotted at this location.

You just click, it opens the map.

So there you are, it's saying that's where we are.

It shows, look, they're at the livestock auction.

You could ring up...

And tell Andrew that I've caught him.

Yeah, you could say you've got my nicked sheep here.

The test was a spectacular success.

The team hope all farmers will use this technology,

meaning all their mobile phones become sheep detectors.

As soon as a stolen sheep turns up, phones will pick the signal.

They'll be nowhere for a stolen sheep to hide.

If the ownership of that sheep was brought into question,

we could find the bolus to prove that it's not the vendor's sheep.

We could then immediately not offer it for sale,

contact Mike, if it was his sheep,

contact the police and put it in their hands.

It sounds like, from what you're saying,

that this could really, really work.

I think every possibility, yeah,

that it could be one of the only ways of identifying rustled sheep.

I think it's a brilliant achievement

which has potential to be rolled out across the country

and revolutionise traceability in sheep.

Wonderful to hear. You've got the technology to this point.

What do you need to happen next to make this viable for other farmers?

We need to take this as evidence that the principle works

and take it to the National Sheep Association.

The Farmers' Union, government departments...

We need to ring people!

That's fantastic, really.

I mean, God, you know...

Yeah, well done.

Very impressive, that's all I can say on the subject.

I mean, you've shot me down.

Got to learn to use a phone properly now!

Back in London, the team are working flat out

to finish Graham's reaction pad.

Ruby's building four main pages into the app she's devised.

Attention, quick statements, emotions and environment.

They should allow Graham to take part in any conversation.

It's something that will last a lifetime.

For as long as he has something to say or something to react to,

he'll be able to use this

and that's what's really exciting because it's an evolving tool.

Working late into the night and the early morning,

Ross has managed to finish the control pad.

And to give Graham another option, in case his hand gets tired,

he's building him a joystick, too.

-Are you nervous?

-Very nervous about the hardware not working,

seeing as I was finishing it on the train up here.

He actually hasn't had any sleep.

-At all?

-No.

Do you feel more affected by the emotionality of it

than some of the other fixes?

I definitely felt a very, very strong emotional connection

to this story right from the second that I saw it.

He could be like your dad or your brother or anyone.

When you well up like that, Ruby,

and I see Ross swaying slightly with the exhaustion of the situation,

you've really tried and committed to this.

After six months,

they hope they've built something that will change Graham's life.

Hi, how are you?

We're excited!

It's lovely to see you both.

Are you OK with us gathering around?

Are you feeling a little bit excited or apprehensive?

"Not too bad."

What we've made for you, Graham, is...

this iPad has an app that's been made especially for you,

designed entirely around your requirements.

The D-pad with buttonhole mount.

-Complete with logo.

-Complete with logo.

When you see...

..the phrases in here,

when they've got quotation marks,

it means that we've used, in some cases,

Zoe's voice or clips from TV and films.

But every time you see just the phrase written as it is...

..we've actually found clips of you and your own voice

from the home videos that we've dug out the attic.

So that...they're actually you.

We went through about 50 hours of footage.

So it was really nice for us, actually,

to hear you speak and see you move and...

That was really great.

-OK.

-You ready?

Cool.

OK.

All right, Graham. Over to you, I guess.

-GRAHAM'S VOICE:

-Thank you, Zoe.

Thank you, Zoe.

That's a big smile, Graham.

Shall we open the door, Graham?

Yes.

Graham, do you want to get up?

No.

-No, not at the moment.

-He's otherwise occupied.

Graham, does this feel good?

Yes.

That, just in and of itself, must be an enormous relief to you both.

-Yeah.

-More.

More. I want you to keep pressing it.

OK, I don't care what you say.

Have a well-earned rest

and a drink.

Zoe...

Thanks, guys.

It was you speaking.

The app has hundreds of clips of Graham's voice

and quotes from film and TV.

More can be added at any time.

-Is this going to help you communicate?

-Yes.

Hey...

You got that out before I could finish the sentence.

And he's only going to get faster and faster.

-SCOTTISH VOICE:

-I'm busy, fuck off!

LAUGHTER

Yes!

So great to hear your voice coming through again.

I told you to fuck off twice and yet you're still here!

LAUGHTER

All right, we'll take the hint.

Thank you.

It was kind of just even more amazing than I thought.

He got so quick at it so fast.

It was just so good.

Give him a week, think how fast he's going to be in a week, I can't wait.

Go on, have a hug.

The team have finished their work.

We leave Zoe and Graham to chat for the first time

since his life-changing stroke.

-GRAHAM'S VOICE:

-I've just had a wash.

-You have.

-Are you ready to go out?

-Yes.

Are you sorry for anything?

No!

So when I leave here tonight, you can say...

-See you tomorrow.

-Yeah.

I love you, Zoe.

See you tomorrow.

Our team's inventions are already changing lives.

Oscar is getting more confident on his bike every day.

The Fix Team are meeting farmers' unions

to drum up interest in their sheep protection system.

Graham has left hospital and moved back home.

Ross and Ruby have designed extra functions for his reaction pad app.

-GRAHAM'S VOICE:

-Meow!

Next time...

I just trip over a lot and I can't stop.

Can the team design a medical helmet with style

for a young David Bowie fan?

HE SINGS

..and build technology to give a partially-sighted mum

the freedom to go outdoors?

We're here!

And help two brothers break the monotony of daily treatment?

And every time you blow, the red car accelerates.

I have never, ever seen this before.